Train Days: Saving Chloe and Max's Agony
by Dairene
Summary: Saving Chloe when she gets stuck on the train tracks turns out to be not so easy, as the locked door is too sturdy to be forced open with a crowbar, and Max's powers glitch out


Life Is Strange fanfiction- Train Days: Saving Chloe and Max's Agony

Max groaned in pain, as a pounding headache resounded through her skull, but she managed to awaken from her vision of the town-razing tornado. Just in time to hear a desperate plea for help.

"Max? Help! I'm stuck!" Chloe's terror-stricken voice resounded in her consciousness.

"Hold on, Chloe!" Max ran anxiously beside her friend. Grabbing both of Chloe's hands, Max tugged fiercely to try and wrench Chloe free.

A sharp horn sounded in the distance.

 _What's that noise?_ Max thought, turning her head. _The train… oh shit!_

"Come on, Max! Hurry!"

Realizing brute force was useless, Max dashed away to look for another means of freeing Chloe, while Chloe tugged futilely at her boot, letting out gasps of fear and desperation.

Max ran toward the lever used to switch tracks and pulled on it with all her might, but the locked device wouldn't budge. "I can't even move it an inch!"

"Please, get me outta here!" Chloe begged, her voice ragged. "Max!"

Gasping, Max ran to the neighboring control box and opened it, sighing in relief. "Awesome, it's not locked!" Then she saw the three unidentified and multi-colored wires, and inhaled sharply. "I need to find a way to cut those wires…!"

"Get me outta here, Max!" Chloe screamed.

"I'm working on it!" Max yelled back, and hastily spun around, looking for something, anything. She rushed up the small railway maintenance outpost nearby and found a crowbar. Rushing back to the track-switch lever, she pried at it with all her might. "I can't even move it with this crowbar?! For real?!" Max cried out in frustration.

"The train is coming! Max, please!"

Fueled by adrenaline, Max ran up to the maintenance building. There had to be something she could cut with inside. She wrenched at the doorknob, only to find it was locked. "Damn it! Damn it all!" She wrenched the crowbar into the side and pried, but the metal lock was far too sturdy to be broken that way.

"Max, get me outta here!" Chloe pleaded for her life. "Please!"

"I'm coming!" Max gave up on the door and twisted around desperately. She saw a huge coil of wire around a large spool, somewhat precariously. "Maybe if I push it…" With this new hairbrained plan, Max raced to the wire and shoved it hard. The heavy spool rolled down a small incline, hit the lever… and did absolutely nothing.

"Please…" Chloe gasped in terror as the train bore down on her. "Please!"

"NO!" Max cried out as the train was just feet from Chloe. She lifted her right arm and rewinded time. "AHHH! I can't… go… further...!" Max strained as pain exploded through her head and white spots dotted her vision. Blood spilled out from her nostrils as the arteries in the anterior nasal septum of her nose ruptured. "I'm can't… do this… anymore…" Realizing she was on the verge of losing consciousness, Max knew she had pushed time back to her very limit of her powers.

With little choice left, Max resorted to a last, desperate maneuver. Even as a part of her mind still screamed at her for potentially violating electrical safety rules, Max stuck her crowbar into the control box and pried with all her strength, tearing at all three wires inside.

"Damn, fuck, break, damn it!" Max gritted her teeth. "AAAUGGGGHHHH!"

The three wires gave way, but the tearing of live electrical wires sent current coursing through the metal control box… and through the crowbar Max wielded.

Blinding pain shot through Max's entire body and her muscles spasmed as she was electrocuted, causing her to scream in agony.

Even Chloe, who was terrified of her impending doom, couldn't help to squirm in horror at Max's bloodcurdling scream of agony. "MAX!"

Max collapsed to the ground, her body writhing and twitching involuntarily from electrocution, but she managed to remain conscious by sheer willpower.

In absolutely no shape to rewind, Max crawled through the gravel to try and reach the track-switch lever. The stones and sharp gravel on the ground lacerated Max's hands and clothes as she crawled, leaving small patches of blood on the ground as she crawled. But the excruciating, searing pain she felt in her muscles drowned out much of the pain of numerous cuts on her hands and legs.

After what felt like hours but was little more than minutes, Max managed to reach the lever with harrowing difficulty, climb to her feet, and pulled it with all her might.

 _Please, let it work…_ Max thought as she collapsed backward and darkness invade her vision. As she plummeted into oblivion, she thought she heard a frantic voice scream her name.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

"Please!" Chloe screamed, as the train ripped her attention from her electrocuted friend, her friend who she was helpless to assist as death bore down on her. Her cries were drowned out by the high-pitched shrill of the braking train's wheels as it sent up sparks from the tracks.

Almost like an answer to her plea, the track clicked, and suddenly, Chloe's foot yanked free and she leapt off the tracks like a spring.

The train barreled past her with a thunderous, screeching roar, going down the side track, before finally coming to a stop a few hundred yards away.

"MAX!" Chloe screamed, dashing across the tracks the moment the train was clear, and running to her friend. "Are you alright? MAX?!"

Max lay on her back in a pitiful heap, her limbs sprawled about awkwardly, and blood staining her face and shirt. If she had heard Chloe, she sure as hell didn't display it. The only movement Chloe could see was an occasional unconscious twitch of her muscles.

Running up to her, Chloe held cradled Max in her arms. "Oh, God! Max! Stay with me! Please! Not like this!" Memories surfaced unbidden in Chloe's mind… of another girl, a blonde, with a stab wound in her arm… Rachel… "No, Max, I can't lose you too! I can't!"

"Ma'am, do you need help?" One of the train's crew and come out and run over. "Is- ?"

"Call an ambulance!" Chloe practically shrieked in grief, and the shocked man stumbled back before quickly complying.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Max groaned as she opened her eyes. "Where… am… I…?" Her head was woozy and a dull ache ran through her entire body. "What… happened…?"

She looked to her side and saw her childhood friend, fast asleep, her blue hair resting against the blankets of her bed. A hospital bed. The pieces assembled quickly inside Max's mind. "Chloe…?"

"Huh… wha-" Chloe lifted her sleepy head, disoriented. Upon seeing Max was awake, her eyes went wide. "MAX! You're okay!" She threw her arms around her friend. "Oh god, I was so worried!"

"I'm so glad… I could save you…" Max said, a tear coming down the corner of her right eye despite herself. "I thought… the train… I was rewinding… but I couldn't go further… not far enough…"

"You saved my life! Again! And you got hurt just to do it! I owe you big time! I… feel pretty lame saying that…"

"I… deserved that…" Max looked down in shame. "Just karma, huh?"

"What? No!" Chloe exclaimed, pulling back and looking at Max's face in horror. "Why would you say that?"

"I'm… not the friend… you deserve… This is karma… for abandoning you all these years… I didn't have the strength… the courage… when it mattered… I never thought how much… you must have suffered… heh, some friend I am…"

"Max, you're here now," Chloe gave Max another tight hug. "That's what matters now. I was angry once… but it melted away so quickly when I saw you, you know? And… you just went through fucking hell to save my life. You're a hella good friend. You're basically a hero with superpowers as far as I'm concerned!"

"Chloe… my powers might not last…" Max mumbled, reciprocating Chloe's embrace and smiling despite herself as tears ran down her face. "Thank you… for forgiving me…"

"It doesn't matter," Chloe rubbed Max's back. "We're together now. Forever."


End file.
